Protesters Take Case For Lithuania To D.c.

June 02, 1990|By Mitchell Locin, Chicago Tribune.

WASHINGTON — School is just out for 16-year-old Aras Norvilas of Oak Lawn, Ill., and he could be home this weekend celebrating the end of classes. Instead, he took a 15-hour overnight bus ride so he could send a message to President Bush.

``We hope to impress on President Bush that he has people here in America that want him to pay a little more attention to Lithuania,`` said Norvilas, who will be a senior at Brother Rice High School in

As Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev continued to charm most Americans with his impromptu street campaigning and ready smile, Norvilas joined several thousand other protesters who rallied Friday in front of the Capitol and later near the Soviet Embassy to take exception to the image of the friendly Communist.

In the largest show of opposition during the Soviet leader`s summit with Bush, the thousands of Lithuanian-Americans demonstrated along with scores representing the other Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia.

They argued that Gorbachev couldn`t be considered a hero for ringing down the the Iron Curtain as long as their native lands are forcibly denied independence by the Soviets.

``Nyet, nyet, Soviet,`` they shouted on the Capitol steps, more than a mile from where Gorbachev and Bush were meeting in the White House.

But when the two leaders arrived at the Soviet Embassy for a dinner Friday night, their motorcades had to pass groups of chanting protesters waving Lithuanian flags.

In contrast to the numerous Soviet flags waving from light poles along Gorbachev`s routes in the city, one protester tied the red flag with the hammer and sickle to his ankles and dragged it on the ground.

Norvilas rode on one of eight chartered buses that brought Chicago-area residents to the rallies Friday and Saturday.

Wearing a Chicago Cubs hat and a pair of shorts in the glaring Washington sun, he said he was typical of Lithuanian-American teenagers who are aware of their ethnic heritage and who are involved in the independence movement.

``We speak the language. We know all the customs. Most of our parents are from Lithuania, so when they raised us we learned those customs,`` he said.

Norvilas learned the love of Lithuania from people like Sofija Jelionis of Darien in Du Page County.

Jelionis was 16 when she escaped Lithuania with her family in 1944 just before the Communists began their second occupation of the country, which the Soviets had annexed in 1940. It was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944.

With her husband, Adolfas, a retired engineer, she joined the bus brigade to Washington in Lemont, carrying with her a 54-year-old Lithuanian flag that her mother had made to display on patriotic holidays in their village of Ukmerge.

``They left by horse and buggy and took this as a sentiment through Europe, Germany and Austria, and to the United States, New York and to Chicago,`` Jelionis recalled as her husband waved the yellow, green and red banner, one of hundreds on display.

Of the 750,000 Lithuanian-Americans, about 100,000 live in the Chicago area, known as the Lithuanian capital of the world outside of Lithuania.

Jelionis said it was important to make the bus trip ``to protest this unjust thing done to our country and to the poor people suffering,`` referring to the Soviet economic blockade that has cut off food, fuel and other supplies since the Lithuanian parliament declared independence in the Soviet Republic on March 11.

``They are taking it quietly but bravely,`` she said of the people in her homeland.

Bush has said he would deny Gorbachev`s request to grant the Soviet Union most-favored-nation trade status and would raise the question of the status of the Baltic states during his summit. Though the U.S. never recognized the Soviet annexation of the republics, neither has it recognized their declared independence.

``He (Bush) must recognize the legally and democratically elected government of Lithuania,`` Dr. Antanas Razma of Joliet told the crowd. He is president of the Chicago-based Lithuanian-American Community Inc., a rally organizer.

``Mr. Gorbachev must be made to realize that his perestroika and glasnost cannot succeed, that there cannot be real economic progress, if the people throughout the Soviet Union are not truly free.``

One message to Gorbachev is a sophisticated commercial running on Washington TV praising him for freeing Eastern Europe and asking him to do the same for Lithuania.